Searching for pirated media is about to get a bit tougher in the United Kingdom thanks to a new agreement by Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft Corp., both of which will now demote piracy search terms on Google and Bing.

The two tech giants signed an agreement this week with the British Phonographic Industry and Motion Picture Association after a series of discussions with companies from the U.K.’s entertainment industry. The U.K. Intellectual Property Office called this a “landmark” deal and says that it will help protect intellectual property from being illegal shared or downloaded.

Google and Bing already remove a wide range pirated content from search results, but they generally only do so after they receive a takedown notice from the respective copyright holders. Under the new U.K. agreement, however, the two search engines will now automatically bury a number of sites and terms related to media piracy, making it harder for the more casual pirates to find.

The new agreement has been in the works for some time now, but until recently, the search companies had been unable to reach an agreement with the U.K. entertainment industry on just how much they would be willing to censor search results. The negotiations picked up steam this month, however, as the U.K. government threatened to legally impose piracy restrictions on the search engines if they could not come up with a plan to do so voluntarily.

The BPI has lauded the agreement as a “first-of-its-kind initiative” that will play a major role in stemming the tide of online piracy and digital copyright infringement.

Despite the praise from copyright holders for the new deal, however, Google has tried to downplay its significance in a statement. “Google has been an active partner for many years in the fight against piracy online,” an Alphabet spokesperson said. “We remain committed to tackling this issue and look forward to further partnership with rights holders.”

Although the agreement will make pirated content harder to find with a simple Google search, it does not look like it will have any impact on the actual services hosting the infringing content. A number of major piracy sites, such as Kickass Torrents, have been taken down. But others seem to be far more resilient, and law enforcement has yet to make a permanent dent in sites such as The Pirate Bay.

Photo: Gwenaël Piaser Jolly Roger via photopin (license)